AP’s paginated sports previews get new look from GateHouse

Known as AP Sports Extra, the preview pages are popular among the news cooperative’s newspaper members as they showcase AP’s quality sports coverage, save newsroom time and resources, and provide an easy vehicle for local advertising sales.

GateHouse will oversee design and pagination of the pages in coordination with AP. They will be distributed through AP’s delivery systems in Adobe InDesign, Adobe Illustrator and PDF formats.

“AP newspapers and their readers and advertisers will appreciate the new look and design of these easy-to-use pages,” said Barry Bedlan, AP’s deputy director of sports products. “GateHouse brings a fresh approach that will benefit all users of these pages.”

The Center for News & Design, which opened last year in Austin, Texas, edits and designs more than 175 newspapers and offers those services to publications outside GateHouse. It also is home to GateHouse’s niche service, More Content Now, as well as content-processing teams for its newspapers and websites.

“Our pages are beautiful, snappy and are being featured in both small and large newspapers today,” said David Arkin, vice president of content for GateHouse. “We believe AP members will find that readers will be huge fans of these pages as they are easy to read, look great and are on topics that are relevant to everyone.”

Besides the Super Bowl, Sports Extra pages are available for major sporting events such as the PGA’s Masters, NCAA men’s basketball tournament, NFL draft, NASCAR Sprint Cup chase, and college football’s bowl season, among others. The pages are provided in full broadsheet, half broadsheet and tabloid sizes to newspaper subscribers of AP Sports.

Learn more about the Center for News & Design at their Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/AustinCND).